Aquila Rapax
by Qoheleth
Summary: In which a regrettably vague prophecy, a paranoid Potions master, and a platter of Mexican empanadas conspire to show yet another Defence against the Dark Arts teacher the door.


**Author's Note:** Those of my readers who are acquainted with the Malachy O'More Challenge on my bio page may be slightly annoyed to find me using a motto that was not assigned to me as the title of my story. I apologize for that, but the title is uniquely appropriate for a number of reasons, which should become clear as you read the story. (And no, I did not take "Aquila Rapax" off the to-be-assigned list because of this story.)

**Disclaimer:** "_Harry Potter_ was created by J. K. Rowling." "_Harry Potter_ is owned by Qoheleth." Which do you think sounds more like reality?

**Image disclaimer:** The photograph above was taken by a gentleman named P. M. Singh, who is utterly unknown to me, and vice versa. I would like to thank him for so perfectly, if unwittingly, summarizing the following story.

* * *

On the twenty-eighth day of April 1962, at about five in the afternoon, Professor Horace Slughorn of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry heard a tapping sound on the outside of his office door.

His immediate reaction was annoyance. The month of May was the busiest month of the year for Hogwarts professors, and the past week had been particularly grueling for the Potions teacher: young Maxwell had spilled a cauldron-full of Razor-Grass Serum on the floor of the dungeon, and it had taken him a full week to get his classroom back to the point where one could safely walk on it without metal boots. As a result, he was now hideously behind in his grading, and the last thing he needed was people knocking on his door.

"Who's there?" he said.

"It is I," said a thin, reedy voice from the other side of the door. "Gosselin." The door creaked open, and the withered, moon-like face of the old Divination master appeared through the crack.

Slughorn groaned. "Malachy," he said, "I know you doubtless have some vitally important secret of the cosmos to share with me, and I appreciate it, but if it could wait just a little while…"

"Ah, of course," said the Divination master. "My apologies. I just thought you might like to know that in seven days' time, an eagle will tear apart the body of a serpent in the Great Hall."

It is doubtful whether he could have chosen a better way of getting Slughorn's complete and immediate attention. In an instant, the Potions master's papers were forgotten, his eyes fixed on the aged seer.

"What was that?" he said slowly.

"In seven days' time, an eagle will tear apart the body of a serpent in the Great Hall," Gosselin repeated. "It was a vision I saw during my crystal-gazing."

"Your crystal-gazing?" Slughorn repeated vaguely.

"Certainly," said Gosselin, with a hint of irritation in his voice. "You know that it is my habit to spend a few minutes gazing into my crystal each Saturday afternoon."

"And you saw an eagle tearing apart a serpent in the Great Hall?" said Slughorn.

"Just that," said Gosselin. "What this meant, I could not say, but it seemed likely that the serpent was in some way connected with the House of which you are Head, and I therefore felt it important that you should know. And now you do. Good day."

And he withdrew without another word, having the air of one who has done all that honour requires.

* * *

The tapping of his cane on the stone floor echoed in the total silence that had suddenly descended upon Slughorn's office, and seemed to freeze the Potions master where he sat. It was only when Gosselin had rounded the corner of the corridor, and the rhythmic _tock-tock-tock_ had faded into the distance, that he rose shakily from his chair, waddled over to the cupboard, poured himself a glass of oak-matured mead, and downed it in a single swallow.

He told himself firmly that it was ridiculous to be so unsettled by one of Gosselin's crystal visions. The old man had had hundreds of them in his years at Hogwarts, and generally they were quite trivial matters dressed up in symbolic language to make them seem impressive. He recalled the time when Gosselin's vision of "the triumph of an Oak Staff in the third contest" had turned out to be a foreshadowing of the outcome of a hippogriff race – and quite a profitable one, Slughorn reflected with a smile.

Just the same, though, one couldn't validly say that Gosselin's prophecies were always trivial. There was that incident in '41, for instance, when he had foretold that poor girl's death nearly two years before the event…

And really, when one came to it, what else could the vision mean? It couldn't very well mean that a literal eagle would literally tear apart a literal serpent; the warding spells around Hogwarts wouldn't permit a wild eagle to find its way in, and anyway he wasn't sure there were snakes this far north. Therefore, it had to be symbolic of something – and the principal thing a serpent symbolised, at Hogwarts, was the House of Slytherin – and, by extension, its Head.

For Slughorn, that settled things. People had called Horace Slughorn many uncomplimentary things in his life – the phrases "social climber", "wealthy parasite", and "that piggish little jumped-up cocktail mixer" all came to mind – but no one had ever accused him of taking insufficient cares for his own skin. If he was scheduled to be torn to bits in the Great Hall seven days from now, then seven days from now the Great Hall would be the one place he would under no circumstances go.

This would present difficulties, of course. It meant that all his meals would have to be delivered to his office, and he would have to take a rather circuitous route to his classes. Still, if that was the price one paid for remaining in one piece come end of term, it would have to be endured.

"After all," he murmured aloud, "a fellow must have his priorities."

* * *

And so, when the sun rose over Hogwarts on the following Saturday and peeked into the window of the Potions teacher's office, it found Professor Slughorn relieving a small house-elf of a breakfast tray liberally stacked with poached eggs, sausages, hotcakes, and spiced pumpkin juice, with assorted fruits and vegetables thrown in more for colour than for nutritional value.

"Good lad, Puddles," he said. "That will be all."

Puddles pinkened with delight at being addressed so graciously by so exalted a personage. "It is only a shame that Sir is not taking breakfast in the Great Hall," he said. "Sir would greatly have enjoyed the pastries that Professor Dumbledore has had the house-elves set out this morning."

Slughorn blinked. "Pastries?" he repeated, with evident interest.

Puddles nodded. "Very light, fluffy pastries," he said, "with many different kinds of sweet fillings inside."

Slughorn licked away a drop of saliva that had suddenly formed on his lip. "Tell me, Puddles," he said, "would it – ah – be possible to bring some of these pastries to – er – to this office?"

"Puddles is afraid not, sir," said that elf regretfully. "Professor Dumbledore specifically ordered the house-elves to leave all the pastries out on the tables of the Great Hall. Puddles must not go against Professor Dumbledore's orders."

"No, of course not," said Slughorn. "Well, then – ah – good day, Puddles."

Puddles bowed very deeply three times and scampered from the room, leaving Slughorn alone with his sausages, his hotcakes, and his newfound inchoate longings.

For, of course, to tell a man of Horace Slughorn's stamp that there are delicious pastries set out in a room he must not enter is to completely spoil his appetite for anything else. Despite his best efforts to focus on the eggs (prepared at just that fluid-but-not-quite-liquid consistency that he preferred), the sausages (neither overly pink nor overly brown at any point, but every inch just right), and the pumpkin juice (warm, thick, and cinnamon-y enough to satisfy the even most demanding gourmand), his mind kept flitting back ineluctably to brown, flaky pastry crust and sweet fruit filling – and, naturally enough, each time it did so, his imagination painted the absent sweets more and more luscious, until he had convinced himself that the hidden manna itself could scarcely be more desirable than the pastries that were at that moment set out in the Great Hall.

This, however, did not mean that he forgot Professor Gosselin's prophecy. On the contrary, the foreshadowed dangers of the Great Hall seemed all the more pressing now that he suddenly had a good reason to go there – and certainly it seemed rather disproportionate to die for pastry… but then again, not _so_ disproportionate…

For about fifteen minutes, greed battled with timidity in Horace Slughorn's soul.

Anyone who knew Horace Slughorn could have predicted the outcome.

Hastily, he went over to his cupboard, pulled out several useful defensive potions in case of an emergency, and tiptoed furtively out of his office and headed for the ground floor.

* * *

Slughorn was not one of Hogwarts's quicker-moving faculty members. By the time he got downstairs, breakfast was long since over, and the Great Hall was completely deserted. This greatly relieved his mind, as the particular construction he had put on the prophecy required another Head of House to be present in order for his health to be imperiled.

He glanced around the Hall, and noted vaguely that it had been redecorated – or, at any rate, that some sort of red- and green-striped banner had been draped over the wall behind the faculty table. This observation, however, was almost immediately driven out of his mind by another, more urgent one: a large, silver platter was resting on the far edge of the Ravenclaw table, and on that platter were a number of plump, triangular pastries.

Eagerly, he trotted over to the edge of the table and examined them. There were about ten or twelve whole pastries left, along with a multitude of fragments and crumbs. They had gotten cold, of course, but a quick Incandescens Charm would soon put that right.

With a few judicious pokes of his forefinger, he examined the matter of fillings. The majority of the pastries appeared to be stuffed with pumpkin – not surprising, as that flavour was always a favorite at Hogwarts – but he also managed to locate one that was filled with pineapple, one with sweet potato, and one with some sort of berry mixture that he couldn't quite identify. He took all of these, as well as two of the pumpkin kind, and wrapped them in a large napkin conveniently at hand. This done, he turned about briskly and made to leave the Great Hall as quickly as humanly possible.

Unfortunately, he had taken no more than two steps when he heard a fateful voice behind him say, "Well, if it isn't old Slughorn-of-Plenty. Morning, mate."

Slughorn's blood froze, and he turned slowly around to behold the face of Gwaihir Jones, newly-appointed Professor of Defence against the Dark Arts and Head of Ravenclaw House.

"Guk," he said intelligently.

"Just came down to pick up some papers I left down here at breakfast," said Jones. "And talking of breakfast, where were you? We were all shocked that you didn't show up."

"Oh, you know," said Slughorn vaguely. "Things to do."

"H'm," said Jones. "Well, better late than never, I suppose. How do you like the empanadas?"

"The what?" said Slughorn.

"Those little pastry things," said Jones. "Some kind of Nicaraguan delicacy or something, I gathered, and Dumbledore set them out today to celebrate a great military victory over the French or the Spanish or the Germans or something, I didn't get all the details. You'll have to double-check with Schwarz, he's the one who knows this stuff."

"Ah," said Slughorn, who, to do him justice, was generally a better conversationalist than this, but whose Broca area had been temporarily petrified by terror. _In seven days' time, an eagle shall tear apart the body of a serpent in the Great Hall_: well, it was seven days later, this was the Great Hall, and here were the Heads of the two Houses represented by an eagle and a serpent. From a kismetic viewpoint, it was all over but the blood-letting.

(It might be asked, at this point, why a teacher who had only been appointed at the beginning of the year had been made Head of Ravenclaw. The answer was that nearly all the senior Ravenclaw teachers, including former Head Athena M. Knox, had resigned during the summer of 1961 upon getting wind of Dumbledore's plan to abolish the Saturday Latin classes. Ravenclaws, as a class, are fairly docile people, but it is always a bad idea to get between them and a dead language.)

"They're not half bad, either," said Jones. "In fact, I think I might just have one more." He reached across the table and picked up a pat of butter and a wickedly sharp thing that was apparently supposed to be a butter knife. At the sight of this latter object, Slughorn's heart leaped into his throat, and he abruptly decided that it was time for desperate measures.

"Oh, Gwaihir, wait a moment," he blurted as Jones reached for the empanada platter. "You won't want those, they're all pumpkin-filled. Why don't you take this delightful berry thing instead?"

As he said this, he leaned forward so that his massive girth obscured Jones's view of his pile of pastries, reached into his pocket, and emptied a bottle of Draught of Living Death into the berry empanada. It was a crude job, and the thing could, under less trying circumstances, have been arranged more artistically, but, as it was, he wasn't in a position to be choosy.

Jones considered. "Well, now, I suppose I might," he said. "If you don't mind, of course…"

"No, no, not a bit," said Slughorn. "Here, take it, and have my blessing."

He thrust the empanada at Jones, who took it affably, slathered a mess of butter over it, and took a large bite. Slughorn watched with bated breath, hoping that the potion had been aged long enough to take immediate effect. If not, he was a dead man.

A frown came over Jones's face as he chewed. "H'm – not so good cold," he said. "Almost musty, in fact. As though they had cobwebs growing over them, or…"

And then, with no further warning, his eyes glazed over and he collapsed face-first into the pile of pumpkin empanadas. He remained in this position for several seconds, and then, as the force of gravity began to do its job, he slowly slid off the table, drawing the platter and the pastries along with him, until the whole entourage tumbled onto the floor with a dull _thump_, a loud _clang_, and several resounding wet _splat_s.

Slughorn withdrew a handkerchief from his pocket and drew it feverishly over his brow. Then, without wasting any further time, he scooped up his four remaining pastries and hied out of the Great Hall as fast as his legs would take him.

* * *

It was about two o'clock that same afternoon, when Professor Alan Schwarz of Muggle Studies was sitting alone at the staff table stirring a cup of tea, that he heard a rhythmic thumping sound as of wood on stone floors, and Malachy Gosselin came hobbling into the Great Hall.

"Ah," he said when he saw Schwarz. "Good evening, young Alan."

"Good evening, sir," said Schwarz respectfully.

"Tell me," said Gosselin, "what was that fearful psychic commotion I felt emanating from this room during my second morning period?"

"Psychic commotion, sir?" said Schwarz.

"Yes," said Gosselin. "Horrible waves of rage just boiling up and disrupting the ether. One of my more sensitive students had to be taken to the hospital wing."

"Oh," said Schwarz. "You must be referring to the incident with Professor Jones."

"Professor Jones?" Gosselin repeated, frowning.

Schwarz nodded. "Soon to be Ex-Professor Jones," he said. "Apparently he's not going to be with us much longer. You see, what happened was that when Professor Jones didn't show up for his first class this morning, the Headmaster and a few other teachers went looking for him, and eventually the Headmaster came into this Hall and found him lying unconscious under one of the tables, with what appeared to be pumpkin smeared all over his face. Well, the Headmaster performed a quick Revival Charm and asked him what had happened, and he just stared at him for a moment, unable to figure out what he was talking about – and then his memory must have started working again, because he suddenly started swearing at the top of his lungs, shouting about how he had known there was something wrong with the pastry Professor Slughorn had given him, and what had he ever done to Professor Slughorn to provoke something like that, and what kind of school was it where faculty members went around just wantonly doctoring each other's food, and so on like that for about ten minutes, at the end of which he announced that he would be leaving Hogwarts as soon as the current term had ended, and just stormed out of the Great Hall." Schwarz shrugged and took another sip of his tea.

"I see," murmured Gosselin. "And what did Horace say to this?"

"Oh, he wasn't there," said Schwarz. "It turned out that he had had one of the house-elves lock him into his office shortly after breakfast, and when the Headmaster _Alohomora_'ed his way in, he found him hiding under his desk, whimpering slightly; nobody seems to know why."

"Most extraordinary," said Gosselin.

Schwarz shrugged, and cracked a smile. "Well, Horace is Horace, of corace, of corace."

Gosselin stared at him. "What?"

Schwarz sighed. "Never mind."

Gosselin rolled his eyes, and was about to slowly rotate himself and head back to the North Tower when his glance fell on the red- and green-striped banner that had so briefly caught Slughorn's eye that morning.

"What is that?" he said.

Schwarz followed his shaky finger. "Oh, that?" he said. "That's the Mexican flag. Headmaster Dumbledore put it up this morning at my suggestion. It's the hundred anniversary of the Battle of Puebla today, you know."

"Indeed?" said Gosselin vaguely.

Schwarz nodded. "_Cinco de Mayo_: fifth of May," he said. "A great festival of the Mexican people, to be celebrated with bright colours, good food, and suggestive Latin dances with beautiful women. Unfortunately, I couldn't convince the Headmaster to give the go-ahead on that last one, but…"

"And that design in the centre," said Gosselin. "An eagle?"

Schwarz nodded. "Tearing at a serpent," he said. "It's the Mexican coat of arms; comes from an old legend about the founding of Tenochtitlan."

"Ah." Gosselin nodded, enlightened. "That's what it meant, then."

Schwarz gave him a quizzical look, but said nothing.

"Well," said Gosselin, with a brief look at his watch, "it is now ten minutes past two, which means that if I hurry, I should have just enough time to get to my three-o'clock class without being more than five minutes late." He sighed. "Never grow old, Alan. It is far more trouble than it is worth."

"I'll remember that, sir," said Schwarz. "And, speaking of your class – today's Saturday, isn't it?"

"It is," said Gosselin.

"Did you see anything in the crystal today?"

"I haven't looked yet," said Gosselin. "That happens at half past four."

"Oh," said Schwarz. "Well, what about last week? Did you see anything then?"

Gosselin shook his head. "Nothing of any importance," he said, with another look at the flag.

"Mm," said Schwarz. "Well, good day, then."

"Good day, young Alan," said Professor Gosselin.


End file.
